Statically Typed Metaprogramming?

Question

I\'ve been thinking about what I would miss in porting some Python code to a statically typed language such as F# or Scala; the libraries can be substituted, the conciseness is

Answer 1

Ideally what I am looking for could modify the function signature, changing the input parameters or output type (a.l.a. function composition) while still maintaining type checking.

I have same need for making R APIs available in the type safe world. This way we would bring the wealth of scientific code from R into the (type) safe world of Scala.

Rationale

1. Make possible documenting the business domain aspects of the APIs through Specs2 (see https://etorreborre.github.io/specs2/guide/SPECS2-3.0/org.specs2.guide.UserGuide.html; is generated from Scala code). Think Domain Driven Design applied backwards.

2. Take a language oriented approach to the challenges faced by SparkR which tries to combine Spark with R.

See https://spark-summit.org/east-2015/functionality-and-performance-improvement-of-sparkr-and-its-application/ for attempts to improve how it is currently done in SparkR. See also https://github.com/onetapbeyond/renjin-spark-executor for a simplistic way to integrate.

In terms of solutioning this we could use Renjin (Java based interpreter) as runtime engine but use StrategoXT Metaborg to parse R and generate strongly typed Scala APIs (like you describe).

StrategoTX (http://www.metaborg.org/en/latest/) is the most powerful DSL development platform I know. Allows combining/embedding languages using a parsing technology that allows composing languages (longer story).